


Boring Around Here

by Merfilly



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis, Labyrinth (1986)
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-09-29
Updated: 2009-09-29
Packaged: 2017-10-14 11:30:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/148800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hoggle's a little bored...but careful about noticing that...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Boring Around Here

Hoggle tried to feel grumpy, but just couldn't. That awful Jareth had finally gotten his comeuppance, and it had been given to him by a mere slip of a girl. There had been a good party in Sarah's room after, to celebrate the victory. Hoggle even felt vaguely like he'd made friends, with Ludo and Didymus at least, although he was quite aware it would not last.

"Hogwash," he snorted, shaking himself off. He noted a smidge of gray far to the side of the labyrinth in the sky, and that made him frown. "Rain? Here?" He shrugged. None of his business. Probably just Jareth sulking, since no one had been sure where he went after Sarah broke the power of the labyrinth. "Time to get back to work." He took his gear and headed for the outer walls.

`~`~`~`~`

"Fifty-seven....fifty-eight..." There wasn't as much joy in hunting the damnable little fairies these days. Very little had been quite as fun as the ultimate end of the grand adventure that had set things in the Labyrinth completely upside down.

Rumors said Jareth had not been seen in the days since Sarah had won. Other rumors persisted that Sarah's very win might have damaged the rules of the Labyrinth irrevocably. Hoggle tended to snort in disbelief at all of that. Jareth was too potent a force to be completely undone, even if he had lost his game. If things were changing, it was because Jareth had learned a lesson, and that was on the list of Impossible Things, so Hoggle knew better.

"Fifty-nine." The waft of the spray fizzled out, just as the winds whipped up. Storms were rather rare in their corner of the dreamlands, but not unknown. Still Hoggle had to wonder at the increased frequency ever since that final battle.

Maybe, just maybe, some rumors were true.

"Oh bother!" Hoggle slung the sprayer and the rest of his gear down. "She's bewitched me too!" He knew better than to be curious about events aside from his life's path. He was half beginning to act like a Pooka with all their damned inquisitive ways.

He turned and looked across the courtyard to the darkening skies encroaching upon them, before he turned his attention to the Labyrinth himself. It had not shifted in some time, so reaching the castle shouldn't take much time at all.

If he was lucky, Jareth would be inclined to not throw him immediately into the Bog of Eternal Stench.

That was if Jareth really was just brooding, like Hoggle believed, and not gone as rumor had it. That thought spurred him quicker as the first snowflake fell in a land that had never known true summer nor winter.

`~`~`~`~`

The snow lay thick on the ramparts already, the coming of a new power too evident to be ignored. Hoggle might have bent with the winds of change, save for a chance encounter with a curious satyr by name of Tumnus. The satyr was certain that the new power was crueler than the cruelest fae Hoggle had ever heard legend of, and he urged Hoggle to do whatever was necessary to break the power before it could settle in and claim the Labyrinth for its own.

Only, Hoggle was no hero, Jareth was trapped as an owl, from what Hoggle had learned. Only one person could release the power of the Goblin King to its true grandeur, and somehow Hoggle thought Sarah might balk at that.

It was time, Hoggle decided, to be a devious dwarf again.

`~`~`~`~`

"Sarah," Hoggle began, causing the girl to spin, spotting him half hidden against the hedges.

"Hoggle!" She came and hugged him hard. "What are you doing here?"

"Well, Sarah, I was worried about you," he said, making his tone as defensive as he knew how.

"I'm fine." She dropped down on the cut lawn of the park, indicating Hoggle should as well.

"You mightn't not be, Sarah," Hoggle warned her. "You beat that old Goblin King and all, which means others might go noticing you!"

Sarah stared at him as if she had never considered that idea. "But...he took Toby!"

"And you took Toby right out of there!" he reminded her. "Which means you don't need nothing from the Labyrinth now."

"I don't have anything, nothing but my friends," she told him, looking worried as she took his hand.

"You won't lose us, Sarah," he promised. "I just want you safe from any enemies that old sourpuss Jareth might have had."

"How can I do that?" Sarah asked him, trusting him again, and he wished he didn't feel like he was half-lying to her...but the Labyrinth needed Jareth back.

"All you have to do is renounce any claim you might have to anything in the Labyrinth." He had to hope that was enough. Surely if Jareth was stuck because Sarah beat him, renouncing the claim on power would undo it.

"I really don't want anything from the Labyrinth! Nothing but the love I found there, the friends!" Sarah said sincerely. Hoggle felt a shift in perception, as if a little bit of magic had seeped from the dreamlands.

"That's a good thing, too, Sarah. You're going to be a beautiful dancer someday, just like you said!" Hoggle reassured. He struggled to his feet. "I've got to be getting back, before anything happens, Sarah, but I'll come again soon."

Sarah smiled and saw him off, feeling strangely freer than she had in recent weeks. Maybe Hoggle had been right.

`~`~`~`~`

"Sixty-seven....sixty-eight."

"Hogwart!"

"Hoggle, your majesty!" the dwarf insisted even as he turned to see the newly restored Goblin King. That witch just hadn't been a match for the freed faerie.

Jareth appraised the dwarf a long moment, then gave a small sigh. "Here." He cast a gazing crystal to the dwarf, before promptly vanishing. When Hoggle looked into it, he could see Sarah, just as she was in her world. The crusty old dwarf put it safely away after a long moment. "You're welcome, Sire," he whispered softly.


End file.
